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Need opinions on furnace ducting and batteries.

Dirty Steve

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I have a 7' x 27' Legend that came lined and has the ceiling insulated, but not the walls, it has two windows, and it came with 110 and 12 volt lighting, generator hook up, and 4- 110 volt outlets. I use the trailer for trips to the mountains and also it came with 8 holes in the floor to be used for ice fishing.
I want to set this up with a furnace, T.V. and Stereo. I want to make it comfortable enough to sleep in if I have to or want to and comfortable enough for my 3 kids to enjoy a day or two of fishing out of, and to have a place to wrench/ thaw a sled and to change clothes in.

I am having the underside of the floor sprayed with 2" of close cell foam insulation and I will be installing 1.5" of rigid foam insulation in the walls.

I have a Suburban 30,000 BTU Quiet forced air furnace that I will be installing.

I have a pretty good plan in mind, but wanted some opinions from guys who have been using a heated trailer for awhile.

First of all, the furnace is to be ducted, so I plan on making a boot/glove dryer from PVC. What is the beast way to duct the heat? Is it beast to try to run ducts down close to the floor, and let the heat rise, or is it okay to dump it near the ceiling and use some 12v fans to help circulate the air?

Batteries- If we are staying in this thing for fishing or spending a lot of time in the trailer, I will have a Honda EU2000i plugged in for power. Is it necessary to run two 6 volt deep cycles, or will a single 12 volt deep cycle be adequate?

Where is the best spot to mount the batteries? This is an in line, so I do not want to have anything sitting on the floor. My wall studs are 24" O.C. and are 1.5" by 1/8" aluminum square tube. I am thinking with one battery I could just put it in a battery box and mounting in my helmet cabinet if I do a little reinforcing.

How/ where to mount L.P. Tanks? I think I will go with two 20 gallon tanks mounted to the side of the v nose and cover them with a plastic tank cover from an R.V. There is no room to mount them on the tongue- the jack handle only clears the front of the V by a few inches. My only concern with mounting them to the side of the V is taking away clearance from the truck bumper if I have to really turn sharp or I get squirrely on the ice.
 

MORSNO

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Batteries can get heavy, so be careful mounting them up high. Some mfgr's are putting battery boxes in the trailer floor to save floor space (mounted to the frame rails). The descision to go with a single 12v or two 6v depends on your planned battery use/consumption. A single 12v group 24 battery has around 75 amp hours, a group 27 and group 31 will each have more. Two 6v deep cycle batteries will have around 211 amp hours. The larger the battery, the larger they physically are, so location may play a part in your choise. Get true deep cycle batteries not combination marine/RV batteries that have Cold Cranking Amps listed, true deep cycle batteries have thicker plates and last longer. 6v batteries have the heaviest plates and last a very long time (2-3 times longer than a group 24 12v). AGM's are also a step up from lead acid and can be mounted on their sides but cost more.

Check out an RV forum for tons of deep cycle information.
 

Dirty Steve

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I think I am going to fab up a rack to stack the batteries on the floor up in the V. My helmet cabinet is up there already so I will make a kick board to divert skis away from that corner. I'll mount all of my accessories in that area under the cabinet which is kind of wasted space anyways.

I looked into an in floor box, but it would protrude 4"-5" below my trailer frame. The trailer rides pretty low, so I think I'll play it safe and go with rack.
I just have to decide what batteries to go with.

Might as well go big I suppose.

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DUKHTR3

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My first trailer I had the batteries mounted in the v. They where 2 12v. It worked good. New trailer i have 2 6v mounted in the floor. Don't no if u have a boat but i just used my trolling motor batteries in my first trailer. Didn't want to spend the money on New batteries at the time.
 

DUKHTR3

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Found a few pics from my old trailer. I will try to get some pics of my furnace set up in my new trailer.

image.jpg
 

Dirty Steve

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Looks good! Do you pump all your heat out through that duct to the rear?

I have ordered a LP tank bracket and cover like yours. I just need to have someone weld some aluminum brackets to my frame to mount it to.

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DUKHTR3

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Looks good! Do you pump all your heat out through that duct to the rear?

I have ordered a LP tank bracket and cover like yours. I just need to have someone weld some aluminum brackets to my frame to mount it to.

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My furnace required at least 4 vents otherwise it will over heat and shut down. The vent going to the back worked ok but most air goes out the other vents. A fan was a must to keep the floor warm. I didn't insulate the floor. My new one has 2" of spay foam on the floor and I don't have to use a fan anymore.

image.jpg
 

DUKHTR3

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Here are a few from my new trailer. Same setup for the most part.

image.jpg
 

DUKHTR3

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Boot dryer works awesome. I bought a 12v fan that is used to vent engine compartments on boats. Dryers things fast

image.jpg
 

DUKHTR3

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Only other thing I am adding is 2 more fold down beds. They are just so simple to take down and up. I also installed a cell booster. I can make call in my trailer sitting in front of bear lodge and from the parking lot in the Sierra madres. It works really well. Just on other thing to think about.

image.jpg
 

mountainhorse

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A pair of Optima D31M's (Amazon).... mounted in the frame... turned on side.
http://www.artecindustries.com/

Make sure you have a really good on-board charger and that you run a healthy sized 12Volt wire from the tow vehicle off a quality isolator. Improper charging and discharging is the cause of death in most batteries... You have to be able to hit a discharged battery pretty hard (high amp) when it's discharged.

If you run 6volt... make sure that you balance charge them often.



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Dirty Steve

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Nice setup! So you added a 12 volt fan to the boot dryer to boost the airflow?

Where do you get the beds? I found some for $495.00 each. That seems a bit high for what they are. I could sleep for a week or two in a lodge with a hot shower for that much.

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ryanjeri

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I recently changed over to two 6v batteries. Got Golf Cart Batteries from Costco. Because of the depth of the batteries I struggled with mounting them in the floor because I didn't want them to hang below the frame. I ended up mounting them between the axles, and ran 1. awg wire back to them from the charge controller and fuse box.

The wire I got was ground wire for a welder, found it at the local farm store.
 

schmidty89

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I also installed a cell booster. I can make call in my trailer sitting in front of bear lodge and from the parking lot in the Sierra madres. It works really well. Just on other thing to think about.


Curious on what type of booster you have purchased? Wouldn't be a bad idea to have considering most places are just on the edge of decent cell service...


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DUKHTR3

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Curious on what type of booster you have purchased? Wouldn't be a bad idea to have considering most places are just on the edge of decent cell service...


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I am using a Wilson 460102 booster. I think i paid under $ 200 for it on ebay. I also bought the roof mounted trucker antenna. My wife sure likes me being able to check in.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wilson-4601...ter-Antenna-/170662231409?hash=item27bc42fd71

https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/rv-trucker-roof-mount-antenna-high-gain-14ft-sma-male-311119/
 
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